Earlier in the week I thought it would be a good exercise to work toward a dream by way of collecting my research and thoughts in a blog.  I shared the link with two friends, swore them to secrecy, and otherwise planned to continue on my merry way under the cloak of stealth pursuit.

Two days later I found an unexpected opportunity to make a go at really making it happen.  My original plan of anonymity was to protect and maintain the integrity of my current search for employment (crazy arctic adventures aside) and also allow myself a place for candid dreaming and fact-finding.  The excitement as I began planning a campaign to win the Quark Expedition Blog Your Way to Antarctica contest has actually served to remind me that without personal goals, hobbies, and some measured risk – no one is a particularly solid candidate for much in life.  And, if my current case of temporary retirement doesn’t extend to far into the Fall, I figure a lil vacation should be permissible when the trip is scheduled in 2010.

I began to solicit (read harass) for votes, first online and then in conversations with friends.  While it’s going to take a heck of a lot more than that to outpace the impressive competition, it’s already provided an overflowing handful of really great moments.

I asked my Mom if she thought my Dad might be interested in joining me if I won.  I already knew it wasn’t her sort of thing. I received what I consider to be one of the most amusing text messages in the history of my phone as a response “Dad has no desire to go to Antarctica…He would be interested in Paradise Island though.”

Spending an evening sipping wine and hand-cutting piles of paper snowflakes with two of my favorite people – Amber and Rob.  That’s her hard at work to the right.

Laura even volunteered (with no hesitation) for a number of crazy missions I’ve proposed to execute “Project Snowflake.”

A blog post written by Zaphod Camden, a twitter friend who I have never even met in person.  It takes my breath away that anyone would take the time to write about this humble little quest.

Elliot’s generous patience and help with the alphabet soup of code.

Have I mentioned lately that I am one of the luckiest people in the world to have the friends and family that I have?  It goes far beyond this list and makes me cringe to only name a few.  This last month has personally been one of the toughest, most humbling, and at times – one of the most inspiring times in my life.  The contest is cool, making a go at something you can’t stop thinking about is pretty neat, but my world is made whole by the people in it and the challenges we face together.

You can vote for me or a long list of others.  For a vote to count, it requires registration and a confirmation.  Please note that if you can’t bear the thought of registering on yet another site, you can easily unsubscribe to email updates and they promise not to sell/share or otherwise place your email address in the hands of any spammers.

I’m going to continue web drifting and filling my head and these pages with what I find.

The addition of an RSS feed (google search “Antarctica”) in the sidebar led me to find that there is currently a contest sponsored by Quark Expeditions where a winner will be selected to travel (with a guest, most expenses paid) to Antarctica in Feburary of 2010 and blog for them.

www.blogyourwaytoantarctica.com

This is really cool!

A simple idea – I should add a little weather widget to the sidebar.

Two hours later I’m knee deep in open tabs, watching youtube videos, trying to figure out which websites are still active and determined not to create a reiteration of all one can find and read in Wikipedia.

First challenge – Antarctica is a continent. It is big. The weather conditions vary wildly. Which leads to the question: Where would I consider the weather most “relevant”? Which, of course, leads to the bigger questions about my goals and purpose. Saying “I want to go to Antarctica” is the equivalent of saying, “Hey, I’d like to go to Asia or Europe.” At some point, you’re going to need to narrow it down a bit.

weather search for Antarctica

Next up, I begin to weed through the options. Most of the pre-fab code I find either doesn’t appeal to me or doesn’t work. I have no time to tinker or attempt to make my own, so I make some concessions. I’d like it to display temperature in both Fahrenheit and Celsius, but for now it does not. Though the weather at the Amundson South Pole base is bad-ass but I’m trying not to focus on the extremes for shock factor (and the name of the base is too big for the widget and it doesn’t display properly.)

I decided to display the weather at McMurdo, on Ross Island. I read over and over that the station houses the largest [human] community on the continent, but I am not confident I can verify this statistic, though it’s likely the case. I’m somewhat surprised that resources for current news appear mostly defunct or are aggregates collecting and displaying links to news sources scraping the keyword “Antarctica.” In the end I favored the “wunderground” website because I like that it displays both F and C. I also feel some affinity for McMurdo as I’m an American, and the National Guard (out of NY) provides airlift support to the NSF which is headquartered there.

I must conclude this first link skipping expedition for today for time’s sake, but here’s a lil list of what I found…

The Antarctic Sun – Publication by Raytheon Polar Services Company and National Science Foundation (last updated 2007)
Is there a current resource like this one still in operation?

Air National Guard – 109th Airlift Wing

The U.S. Navy also supported McMurdo between 1955 and 1999

Unviersity of Wisconsin and IceCube

UPDATE 7/31/09

I changed the weather report in the sidebar to display the current weather at Rothera Point. While I’m currently attempting to Blog My Way To Antarctica it seemed more appropriate to keep my eye on the weather closest to the Peninsula, where I hope to end up. Still doing research to locate the true closest weather station, but it’s proving to be a bit of a challenge to narrow down the geography.

In college I met a Professor who told me that seeing the movie “Jurassic Park” led him to teach Science to Film students. He saw so much passion in the storytelling, in the film and it’s characters, that he felt he could “change the world” by teaching the fundamentals of Science to future communicators and entertainment-makers.

From that day forward he was my favorite teacher and among my most influential mentors. I went on to take the requisite four classes in a given subject my Alma Mater deemed appropriate to declare a minor in a subject. I graduated with said minor in “Science.” It is a bit difficult for me to say this with a straight face as the Science department was newly founded and my level of education was nebulous and theoretical at best. Anyone with a degree in a scientific field has it in a specific study, not something that reveals itself as 101 level upon first mention. Still, I am grateful for the opportunity I had to study a subject outside of the trade focused curriculum with a truly brilliant and charismatic individual. I learned more life lessons standing knee-deep in New England marshes and learning Meteorology with the local news station’s “Weather Man” (one of his hand-picked recruits.)

What does this have to do with my quest to go to Antarctica?

In the midst of a job search, I must qualify everything I say and pursue based upon what I am truly expert in. I would never claim it to be in the field of science. My initial decision to attend the school I chose was based on the similar ideals of this Professor. At 17 years old, I decided not to pursue a Journalism degree or one in Marine Biology, as were top on my list, but to learn how to tell a story via various media. I could speak endlessly from the point of view I had at 17 years old vs. my current 30 year old mind-set, but this is where I will freely admit all that I don’t know and speak most about what I am not expert in.

For now, the beginning starts simply – in fiction. I read “Antarctica” by Kim Stanley Robinson sometime in high school. I fell in love with the history and geography, finding myself immersed in the vivid descriptions of the environment, albeit, in the context of a SciFi novel. At the time I was also weighing the thought of going to college in Alaska, but I’ll have plenty of time to wax poetic about my personal attraction to cold and extreme locales later.